Zhang Weishun's Guide to Getting Rich by Raising Sheep: Farming Experience Shared
Zhang Weishun is an ordinary man. Yet it is in such an ordinary person that we see the success of perseverance in escaping poverty. Recently, after a drive of more than 20 minutes, the reporter arrived at Chengren Village, Anshu Town, Dongliao County, and found Zhang Weishun, the leader of the Weishun Sheep Raising Professional Cooperative.
When asked how Zhang Weishun got into the sheep raising business, he told the reporter that because his family was poor when he was a child, he dropped out of school before finishing junior high and stayed home to help his parents herd cattle, tend sheep and do odd jobs. But he was clever from a young age, with a quick mind, and during those years of herding sheep he figured out a thing or two about the animals. In the early 1990s, Zhang Weishun went to the Dongji market to sell mutton. After earning his first pot of gold, he and his wife went to Dalian to do business in sheep. Over more than 20 years of struggle, they went through countless hardships and tasted all the sweets and bitters of life, and finally gained a foothold and built a foundation for their own business. When the bitterness ended and the sweetness came, it should have been the time for him to enjoy life, but he did not choose comfort. Instead, he resolutely returned to his hometown to engage in the sheep raising business. Zhang Weishun thought that this would not only allow him to stay home and keep his land, but also drive more farmers to get rich along with him.
Zhang Weishun is a man who does things cleanly and decisively, acting as soon as he says he will. From choosing the site to building the sheep shed, the couple got up before 5 a.m. every day, carrying corn stalks, cutting grass, mixing feed, cleaning and disinfecting the sheep pen on a regular basis, doing a good job of disease prevention, contacting and communicating with professional staff at the town animal husbandry center at any time, and staying busy from morning to night every day, so tired they could not straighten their backs. His wife once wanted to give up, but seeing her husband's tenacity, she still persevered with him.
To develop the sheep raising business on a large scale, one must also have solid sheep raising skills. Zhang Weishun often went to the market to ask about prices and went to bookstores to learn. At the same time, he went deep into the homes of other sheep raisers to exchange and learn from experience, and gradually explored a new path of scientific sheep raising. Zhang Weishun, who discovered the business opportunity of getting rich by raising sheep during his entrepreneurial journey, has now established the Weishun Sheep Raising Professional Cooperative in Chengren Village, Anshu Town, Dongliao County. Today, the sheep at Zhang Weishun's farm have grown from more than 300 at the beginning to more than 1,000 now, and the annual income can reach more than 200,000 yuan. Driven by him, there are now more than 10 specialized sheep raising households in the whole village.
When asked about his plans for the farm in the future, he said that next year he will build standardized sheep pens, a feed warehouse and a biogas digester. If you are going to do it, you have to go all out.
Reporter's notes:
Not only Zhang Weishun. In the past interviews with leaders in getting rich, I could deeply feel that these leaders all have tenacity and an unyielding spirit in their characters. Only in this way can they avoid stopping because of the setbacks and difficulties encountered in the initial stage. They dare to take risks and are good at studying, so they can continuously develop new varieties, continuously improve and innovate technology, and continuously open up new markets. They are all kind and generous, willing to share, and that is why there is the vivid practice of "being rich yourself does not count as being rich; let everyone get rich together."